To the Workers Who Support the Struggle Against the War and Against the Socialists Who Have Sided With Their Governments

Published:
First published in the magazine Proletarskaya Revolutsia No. 5 (28), 1924.
Written at the close of December (old style) 1916.
Published according to the manuscript.
Source:Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1964,
Moscow,
Volume 23,
pages 229-235.
Translated: M. S. Levin, The Late Joe Fineberg and and Others
Transcription\Markup:R. CymbalaPublic Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive
2002
(2005).
You may freely copy, distribute,
display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and
commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
Archive” as your source.
• README

The international situation is becoming increasingly clear
and increasingly menacing. Both belligerent coalitions have latterly
revealed the imperialist nature of the war in a very striking way. The more
assiduously the capitalist governments and the bourgeois and socialist
pacifists spread their empty, lying pacifist phrases—the talk of a
democratic peace, a peace without annexations, etc.—the sooner are they
exposed. Germany is crushing several small nations under her iron heel with
the very evident determination not to give up her booty except by
exchanging part of it for enormous colonial possessions, and she is using
hypocritical pacifist phrases as a cover for her readiness to conclude an
immediate imperialist peace.

England and her allies are clinging just as tightly to the colonies
seized from Germany, part of Turkey, etc., claiming that in endlessly
continuing the slaughter for possession of Constantinople, strangulation of
Galicia, partition of Austria, the ruin of Germany, they are fighting for a
“just” peace.

The truth, of which only a few were theoretically convinced at the
beginning of the war, is now becoming palpably evident to an increasing
number of class-conscious workers, namely, that a serious struggle against
the war, a struggle to abolish war and establish lasting peace, is out of
,the question unless there is a mass revolutionary struggle led by the
proletariat against the government in every country, unless bourgeois rule
is overthrown, unless a socialist revolution is brought about. And the war
itself, which is imposing an unprecedented strain upon the peoples, is
bringing mankind
to this, the only way out of the impasse, is compelling it to take giant
strides towards state capitalism, and is demonstrating in a practical
manner how planned social economy can and should be conducted, not in the
interests of the capitalists, but by expropriating them, under the
leadership of the revolutionary proletariat, in the interests of the masses
who are now perishing from starvation and the other calamities caused by
the war.

The more obvious this truth becomes, the wider becomes the gulf
separating the two irreconcilable tendencies, policies, trends of socialist
activity, which we indicated at Zimmerwald, where we acted as a separate
Left wing, and in a manifesto to all socialist parties and to all
class—conscious workers issued on behalf of the Left wing immediately
after the conference. This is the gulf that lies between the attempts to
conceal the obvious bankruptcy of official socialism and its
representatives’ desertion to the bourgeoisie and their governments, as
well as the attempts to reconcile the masses with this complete betrayal of
socialism, on the one hand, and, on the other, the efforts to expose this
bankruptcy in all its magnitude, to expose the bourgeois policy of the
“social-patriots”, who have deserted the proletariat for the bourgeoisie,
to destroy their influence over the masses and to create the possibility
and the organisational basis for a genuine struggle against the war.

The Zimmerwald Right wing, which was in the majority at the conference,
fought the idea of breaking with the social-patriots and founding the Third
International tooth and nail. Since then the split has become a definite
fact in England; and in Germany the last conference of the “opposition”,
on January 7, 1917, revealed to all who do not wilfully shut their eyes to
the facts, that in that country too there are two irreconcilably hostile
labour parties,, working in opposite directions. One is a socialist party,
working for the most part underground, and with Karl Liebknecht one of its
leaders. The other is a thoroughly bourgeois, social-patriot party, which
is trying to reconcile the workers to the war and to the government. The
same division is to be observed in every country of the world.

At the Kienthal Conference the Zimmerwald Right wing did not have so
large a majority as to be able to continue its
own policy. It voted for the resolution against the social-patriot
International Socialist Bureau, a resolution which condemned the latter in
the sharpest terms, and for the resolution against social-pacifism, which
warned the workers against lying pacifist phrases, regardless of socialist
trimmings. Socialist pacifism, which refrains from explaining to the
workers the illusory nature of hopes for peace without
overthrowing the bourgeoisie and organising socialism, is merely an echo of
bourgeois pacifism, which instils in the workers faith in the bourgeoisie,
presents the imperialist governments and the deals they make with each
other in a good light and distracts the masses from the maturing socialist
revolution, which events have put on the order of the day.

But what transpired? After the Kienthal Conference, the Zimmerwald
Right, in a number of important countries, in France, Germany and Italy,
slid wholly and entirely into the very social-pacifism Kienthal bad
condemned and reject ed! In Italy, the Socialist Party has tacitly accepted
the pacifist phrases of its parliamentary group and its principal speaker,
Turati, though, precisely now, when absolutely the same phrases are being
used by Germany and the Entente and by representatives of the bourgeois
governments of a number of neutral countries, where the bourgeoisie has
accumulated and continues to accumulate enormous war profits—precisely
now their titter falsehood has been exposed. In fact, pacifist phrases have
proved to be a cover for the new turn in the fight for division of
imperialist spoils!

In Germany, Kautsky, the leader of the Zimmerwald Right, issued a
similar meaningless and non-committal pacifist manifesto, which merely
instils in the workers hope in the bourgeoisie and faith in
illusions. Genuine socialists, the genuine internationalists in Germany,
the Internationale group and the International Socialists of
Germany, who are applying Karl Liebknecht’s tactics in practice, were
obliged formally to dissociate themselves from this manifesto.

In France, Merrheim and Bourderon, who took part in the Zimmerwald
Conference, and Raffin-Dugens, who took part in the Kienthal Conference,
have voted for meaningless and, objectively, thoroughly false
pacifist resolutions, which, in the present state of affairs, are so much
to the advantage of
the imperialist bourgeoisie that even Jouhaux and Renaudel, denounced as
betrayers of socialism in all the Zimmerwald and Kienthal declarations,
voted for them!

That Merrheim voted with Jouhaux and Bourderon and Raffin-Dugens with
Renaudel is no accident, no isolated episode. It is a striking symbol of
the imminent merger everywhere of the social-patriots and
social-pacifists against the international socialists.

The pacifist phrases in the notes of a long list of imperialist
governments, the same pacifist phrases uttered by Kautsky, Turati,
Bourderon and Merrheim—Renaudel extending a friendly hand to the one and
the other—all this exposes pacifism in actual politics as a
means of placating the people, as a means of helping the
governments to condition the masses to continuation of the imperialist
slaughter!

This complete bankruptcy of the Zimmerwald flight has been still more
strikingly revealed in Switzerland, the only European country where the
Zimmerwaldists could meet freely, and which served as their base. The
Socialist Party of Switzerland, which has held its congresses during the
war without interference from the government and is in a better position
than any other party to promote international solidarity between the
German, French and Italian workers against the war, has officially
affiliated to Zimmerwald.

And yet, on a decisive question affecting a proletarian party, one of
this party’s leaders, the chairman of the Zimmerwald and Kienthal
conferences, a prominent member and representative of the Berne
International Socialist Commit tee, National Councillor R. Grimm,
deserted to the social-patriots of his country. At the
meeting of the
Parteivorstand[1]
of the Socialist Party of Switzerland on January 7, 1917, he secured the
adoption of a decision to postpone indefinitely the party
congress, which was to be convened for the express purpose of deciding the
fatherland defence issue and the party’s attitude towards the Kienthal
Conference decisions condemning social-pacifism.

In a manifesto signed by the International Socialist Committee and
dated December 1916, Grimm describes as hypocritical
the pacifist phrases of the governments, but says not a word about the
socialist pacifism that unites Merrheim and Jouhaux, Raffin-Dugens and
Renaudel. In this manifesto Grimm urges the socialist minorities to fight
the governments and their social-patriot hirelings, but at the same time,
jointly with the “social-patriot hirelings” in the Swiss party, he
endeavours to bury the party congress, thus rousing the just
indignation of all the class-conscious and sincerely internationalist Swiss
workers.

No excuses can conceal the fact that the Parteivorstand decision of
January 7, 1917 signifies the complete victory of the Swiss social-patriots
over the Swiss socialist workers, the victory of the Swiss
opponents of Zimmerwald over Zimmerwald.

TheGrütlianer, that organ of the consistent and avowed
servants of the bourgeoisie in the labour movement, said what everyone
knows is true when it declared that social-patriots of the Greulich and
Pflüger type, to whom should be added Seidel, Huber, Lang, Schneeberger,
Dürr, etc., want to prevent the congress from being held, want to prevent
the workers from deciding the fatherland defence issue, and threaten to
resign if the congress is held and a decision in the spirit of
Zimmerwald is adopted.

Grimm resorted to an outrageous and intolerable false hood at the
Parteivorstand and in his newspaper, the Berner Tagwacht, of
January 8, 1917, when he claimed that the congress bad to he postponed
because the workers were not ready, that it was necessary to campaign
against the high cost of living, that the “Left” were themselves in
favour of postponement,
etc.[2]

In reality, it was the Left, i.e., the sincere Zimmerwaldists, who,
anxious to choose the lesser of two evils and also to expose the real
intentions of the social-patriots and their new friend, Grimm, proposed
postponing the congress until March, voted to postpone it until
May, and suggested that the meetings of the cantonal committees be
held before July; but all these proposals were voted down
by the “fatherland defenders”, led by the chairman of the Zimmerwald arid
Kienthal conferences, Robert Grimm!!

In reality, the question was: shall the Berne International Socialist
Committee and Grimm’s paper he allowed to
hurl abuse at foreign social-patriots and, at first by their
silence and then by Grimm’s desertion, shield the Swiss Social
patriots; or shall an honest internationalist policy be pursued, a policy
of fighting primarily the social-patriots at home?

In reality, the question was: shall the domination of the
social-patriots and reformists in the Swiss party he concealed by
revolutionary phrases; or shall we oppose to them a revolutionary
programme and tactics on the question of combating the high cost of living,
as well as of combating the war, of putting on the order of the day the
fight for the socialist revolution?

In reality, the question was: shall the worst traditions of
the ignominiously bankrupt Second International be continued in Zimmerwald;
shall the workers be kept ignorant of the things the party leaders do and
say at the Parteivorstand; shall revolutionary phrases be allowed to cover
up the vileness of social-patriotism and reformism, or shall we be
internationalists in deeds?

In reality, the question was: shall we in Switzerland too, where the
party is of primary importance for the whole of the Zimmerwald group,
insist upon a clear, principled and politically honest division between the
social-patriots and the internationalists, between the bourgeois reformists
and the revolutionaries; between the counsellors of the proletariat, who
are helping it carry out the socialist revolution, and the bourgeois agents
or “hirelings”, who want to divert the workers from revolution by means
of reforms or promises of reforms: between the Grütlians and the
Socialist Party—or shall we confuse and corrupt the minds of the workers
by conducting in the Socialist Party the “Grütlian” policy of the
Grütlians, i.e., the social-patriots in the ranks of the Socialist Party?

Let the Swiss social-patriots, those “Grütlians” who want to
operate their Grütlian policy, i.e., the policy of their national
bourgeoisie, abuse the foreigners, let them defend the “inviolability” of
the Swiss party from criticism by other parties, let them champion the old
bourgeois-reformist policy, i.e., the very policy that brought on the
collapse of the German and other parties on August 4, 1914—we, who adhere
to Zimmerwald in deeds and not merely in words, interpret internationalism
differently.

We are not prepared passively to regard the efforts, now definitely
revealed, and sanctified by the chairman of the Zimmerwald and Kienthal
conferences, to leave everything unchanged in decaying European socialism
and, by means of hypocritical professions of solidarity with Karl
Liebknecht, to bypass the real slogan of this leader of the
international workers, his appeal to work for the “regeneration” of the
old parties from “top to bottom”. We are convinced that on our side are
all the class-conscious workers in all countries, who enthusiastically
greeted Karl Liebknecht and his tactics.

We openly expose the Zimmerwald Right, which has deserted to
bourgeois-reformist pacifism.

We openly expose Grimm’s betrayal of Zimmerwald and demand convocation
of a conference to remove him from his post on the International Socialist
Committee.

The word Zimmerwald is the slogan of international socialism and
revolutionary struggle. This word must not serve to shield
social-patriotism and bourgeois reformism.

Stand for true internationalism, which calls for the struggle,
first of all, against the social-patriots in your own country!
Stand for true revolutionary tactics, which are impossible if there is a
compromise with the social-patriots against the revolutionary
socialist workers!